Science Museums to scale down in anticipation of longer-term losses

With a £23m drop in income expected for 2020/21 and a predicted shortfall of £15m next year, the Science Museum Group has announced more measures to help mitigate losses. These will include moving to five-day opening outside of holiday periods and up to 95 redundancies initially.

As well as “significant cost-saving measures already taken and others planned” there will be a six-month strategic review of the organisation’s operations and the scale of its activities will be reduced further.

Emergency funding from the Government, the Job Retention Scheme and revenues from “loyal supporters and partners” have kept it going so far, but self-generated income accounts for half its annual turnover. The museum believes ongoing restrictions and the impact on international tourism mean revenues will remain severely depressed for some years.